The Stars Fall

Since the morning, when the dawn came in red-burning skies and hot wind, our vigilant hill scouts dispatched reports of having seen a meteor fall to the field far from my post. This news scared us all, and made us think of further dangers. Our caravans fought for shelter; if it should be in caves or travelling further along the state border to reach the mountains. We thought, though, that even caves seemed deep and compressed, profound cavities could protect humans from skyward radiation, but, mountains, provided better reinforcement for all of us. Those who chose life over satisfaction sought for the closest and deepest hollow cave. Almost sixty men whent forth unto east to hit high land, and for me and the others, we agreed to remain, risk solar radiation, and seeked deep, damp caves under a camp of 35 soldiers.

Like wet dogs, I saw these men hustle deeply into and between the hollow cavern rocks, stone walls, and wet grounds so we could flee the light of the burning sky; the sun was boiling us, and the comet seemed to opress the Earth just as well. I followed a pack of 10 fatigued men into a rigid tunnel. There was a noxious smell that slowed our movement and breathing and ventalation. One-hundred feet deep under the ground, we lost feeling in our legs and backs, in our skin because of the heat, and our muscles had gone numb as we dug for deeper space. I was told to dig at one of two working caves. With bare hands and feet, we dug into darker holes as like digging for our lives and for the survival of the camp members. At 2 p.m., I was stationed to make digging with others in the tunnel. I was lucky to have my own empty rifle to escavate with easily. Others had bloody hands for picking at rocks and stones. The deeper the ground, I saw, the more I saw of dark water and little stones. I dug and cramped, and dug and cramped, and dug and fell to a pain in my hip. I rose and dug with other soldiers.

Suddenly, something rocked the earth like a hammer, everything fell, and I was stunned on the head by a rock. Things became unsteady to me. I lifted myself, saw people scrambling madly, and heard, ''Get out! It's coming down!''. Instantly, I knew I had to act and rushed against men, pushed and jostled. There was screaming and shouting and darkness, and trapped in the caverns. The tunnel besides had collapsed and crushed all the 23 soldiers digging there. With frantic effort, no one could lift the boulders blocking that tunnel. There was screaming and weeping among these survivors, and only a need to escape the ash and carbon. Then a gas released from old caverns trapped and choked others to death, and the carbon clogged our lungs and slained many. We had to escape as it was every man for himself, even if comrades saw others in distress, we had to escape. Men were abondoned dead, and left alone in the clashing rocks. The whole cave had dropped.

I made it out and only with the scratch on my skull. Men shouted and weeped helplessly to the disaster. Yet, what had gone on was like an earthquake. No one knew what happened yet. I ran back after the ruins of the old cave now a mound of rocks and hurled away the stones to save the men. It was useless; the soldiers were nearly half a hundred feet under and dead. All of us scrambled around the sunken mound, and could do nothing but to go seek shelter from the light and heat. We could barely keep stationed seeing that comet slowly glide over us in gentle assault. Then, in the sky, appeared a striking meteor coming down. It fell like a projectile and hammered the hills forward. ''What the hell is going on!'', panicked one soldier. ''We gotta move and take cover!'', another shouted. It was like an infernal storm and the sky had fallen apart. Meteors were falling to the Earth and bombarding the land absolutely in great drive, in powerful onslaught like never before had I seen happen.

Strikes were falling like war shells all about, a blast extinguished a crowd of soldiers, and all others scrambled to the wider fields, now burnt, like stampeding savages. Many stumbled and fell and killed in the falling meteors: the smallest being as large as a boulder. In impact on the earth, it was an explosion so tremendous it blew a burnt pit in the ground. The sky was in unified chaos of streaking fires and falling rock. I escaped into a hot pit of a meteorite, still in fire and molten rock. One meteorite fell so close to me; so close in fact that my ears were blown out of their hearing and disabled from the rest of the world. I was knocked out nearly lifeless when earth shot up against me in the impact and hit me. Hours later I woke up to these same bombardments, now having moved to the east, where the mountains were, where the survivors whent forth. These planetary strikes were like (if you could have seen them) bombs of all strengths hitting the ground in powerful force. It was brutal when witnessed by the human soul, how things could change in a few minutes. It was death these days that seemed to linger in and out of our constant lifetime, during the days of destruction.

Story summary

Following the interplanetary disasters upon the solar system, Earth strained for survival during its darkest of times in history. Entire civilizations fell to ash and ruin as nations collapsed under terrible distress of the forces of nature. Now the fate of man is grown vague as ''Wormwood'' positions into space and threatens the globe as we falter into a new era of survival, and into a new age in history. With only the savage struggles of human society remaining only hope can revive mankind.

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